


hachiko

by owlinaminor



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged Up, Canon Compliant, Dogs, Dogsitting, M/M, Shenanigans, questionable t-shirt choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6697015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agreeing to watch Iwaizumi's dog for the summer was a bad idea.  Not because Oikawa Tooru is a bad caretaker (he <i>isn't</i>), but because of this asshole he keeps running into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hachiko

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dicaeopolis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dicaeopolis/gifts).



> happy birthday to becky dicaeopolis, the bokuto to my kuroo and best cowriter and beta i could ever ask for. may we continue enabling & humiliating each other for years to come.
> 
> some notes:  
> \- hachiko is a statue of a dog located outside the train station in shibuya, tokyo. the dog was a real dog, who waited loyally for his owner every day at the train station, even after his owner died. the statue is meant to symbolize loyalty and perseverance. it's also a common meeting spot for friends meeting up in shibuya.  
> \- endless thanks to [megan](https://twitter.com/hotdadtrinity), for proofreading and assuring me that my oikuroo was solid. (and for one other thing.)  
> \- shoutout to my architecture professor, for giving me the knowledge to actually set fics in tokyo (he's a cool dude and a weeb.)  
> \- contains spoilers for star wars: the force awakens, because this is oikawa pov and these things happen.  
> \- the illogicool shirt is [real](http://www.redbubble.com/people/ducktah/works/10475369-illogicool) and i own one.  
> \- kyo the dog is very intentionally named after kyo the fruits basket character.

Tooru shouldn’t have agreed to this.

He crosses the same intersection for the fifth time in as many hours, calls out the same name he’s been calling for so long his voice is going hoarse, and kicks at the same lamppost he kicked at when the sun was high in the sky.  The light is fading now, kids are venturing home, the cicadas are starting their nightly symphony – and he shouldn’t have agreed to this.

_Sure, I can take care of Kyo for three months, Iwa-chan.  I know how to look after other living creatures, Iwa-chan.  I’m a responsible adult, Iwa-chan.  You can trust me, Iwa-chan._

Tooru kicks at another lamppost.  His toe is starting to hurt, but he can deal with that later.

Curse his stupid pride – his stupid _fucking_ pride –

“Are you trying to put a dent in that thing?   Because if you’re doing kind-of a shitty job of it if you are.”

Tooru gasps and whirls around to face the intruder.  He’s leaning against the side of a nearby apartment building, skulking in the shadows like an overgrown alleycat trying to show off.  He’s got dark hair in the kind of bedhead that embarrasses Tooru just looking at it, green-gold eyes that pierce clean through the dusk, and a cunning smirk that somehow simultaneously makes Tooru nervous and sends sparks fizzing down his spine, as though he just downed a glass of champagne.

“Who the fuck are you to tell me when I’m doing a shitty job?” Tooru snaps, once he regains his composure (and stops meeting the guy’s gaze.)

“I like to think of myself as a responsible citizen,” the guy replies.  “When I see a piece of trash on the street, I throw it out.”  He unfolds himself and steps into the pool of light cast by the streetlamp, revealing long limbs, a dark leather jacket, and a blue T-shirt with English words Tooru can’t quite make out.  He’s taller than Tooru is.  Tooru’s not sure how he feels about that.

And only then does the full implication of what he just said hit.

“Are you … Are you calling me _trash_?” Tooru splutters.

The guy’s grin gets wider – something about him reminds Tooru of a purring cat.  “Who else spends their Friday night running around the neighborhood, shouting, and kicking lampposts?  In an X-Files shirt, no less.”

“Okay, well, first of all,” Tooru shouts back, “the fact that you knew this is an X-Files shirt means you aren’t much better.  And second of all, I’m looking for my friend’s dog.”  This – this kind of easy banter – he knows how to do.  Years of Iwaizumi calling him the scourge of the earth has trained him well.

“Your friend couldn’t look for their own dog?”

Tooru shakes his head.  “He’s out of town.  I’m dogsitting.”

“Dogsitting,” the guy repeats.  He chuckles, the sound rumbling up from low in his throat like the engine of a rocket starting to take off.

“Yeah – is that funny to you?”

The guy shrugs.  “Kinda, yeah.  Not only did you lose an entire dog, it’s not even _your_ dog.  Aren’t you afraid it’ll abandon you forever?”

“No,” Tooru says.  But he pictures Iwaizumi’s face when he gets back from Okinawa and finds out Kyo’s missing, and – he hopes he sounds more convinced than he feels.

The guy shakes his head in overexaggerated disappointment, like a schoolteacher whose pupils were caught whispering during a test.  “That’s bad.  You should be.  Or else you’ll never find him.”

Tooru bristles.  He knows a challenge when he hears one.  “I’ll find him,” he says.  It’s the same tone of voice he uses when he tells his coach he can master a new play, the same one he uses when he tells his team they’re going to win this game.

“Yeah?”  The guy raises one dark eyebrow, looks Tooru up and down.  Tooru feels oddly as though he’s being eaten alive.

“Prove it.”

And so Tooru continues searching for the dog.  He checks around corners, peeks into alleyways, and scales fire escapes.  He ventures around the backs of bars, examines izukayas, and even opens dumpsters.  All to no avail.  And with every step, this asshole follows him – asking dumb questions, making judgmental comments, and just generally making Tooru’s life as difficult as possible.  His patience hasn’t been tried this much since Kyoutani decided to rejoin the team two weeks before Spring High.  He likes to think of himself as a resilient person, though – the type of person who can live through mockery without losing his cool.  He likes to think he’s grown since, well, junior high.

But after Tooru crawls through a narrow tunnel to a closed-off street, steps in a pile of bird shit, and nearly steps on a rusty nail, all because the asshole following him around dared him that he wouldn’t fit, Tooru is done.  Fuse ended.  Cool burned.

“Okay, either help me or get out of here,” he says, brushing off his jeans.

The guy – who’s leaning on a wall again, seriously, why does he like _leaning_ on things so much, and does he do it on purpose to make himself seem more attractive, because, well, fuck, it’s _working_ – looks Tooru up and down, calculating as a fucking TI-89, and says –

“Okay.”

“Okay _what_?  Okay, you’ll leave me alone?”

“No.  I’ll help.”

Tooru has to work to keep his mouth from dropping open.

“How the fuck are you supposed to _help_?” he demands.

The guy frowns.  “What?  You asked.”

“It was _rhetorical_!  And I didn’t think you’d be nice enough to say yes.”

“I’m a nice person!”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“Okay, well …” The guy unfolds and walks over to Tooru.  From this close up, Tooru can see every tuft of shitty bedhead in his shitty hair.  “Tell me about this dog.”

Tooru is halfway through describing the precise color of Kyo’ fur (dark red-orange, the color of brick that’s been out in the sun too long) before he stops.  “Wait, how is this going to help?  Are you some kind of dog-whisperer?”

The guy shrugs.  “Yeah, kinda.”

“What do you mean, _kinda_?” Tooru wants to know.  “Do you have training?  Experience?  References?”

“I have a cat.”

Tooru waits for more additions to that statement, but none seem to be forthcoming.

“A cat?  Seriously?  That’s it?”

Another shrug.  “Cats and dogs are both pets.  How different can it be?”

Tooru considers this.  “Has your cat ever gotten lost before?”

The guy tilts his head up, thinking, then says, “No.  Kenma’s more of a stay inside, sit in the sunlight, take lots of naps kind-of cat.”

“So …”  Tooru stares at this strange, tall, ridiculous person.  “How is that going to help?  At all?”

“I guess it’s not,” the guy admits.

“You guess, huh?”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, there is silence.  A car horn honks somewhere on the main road, quickly followed by a second.  The streetlamp flickers off and back on again.  Tooru realizes, suddenly, how close and he and this other asshole are standing – but doesn’t step back.  He feels like, somehow, if he did, he’d be losing.

And then, the guy moves – his hand reaches down into his pocket and pulls out a slick silver cell phone.  He swipes at the screen a few times, then puts it to his ear.

“Hey,” he says.  “Daichi?  I need your expertise.”

* * *

Tooru can’t sleep.

Well, he _can_ , technically – his brain has the hormonal ability to go into a subconscious state in which its energy refuels for the next day – except that he _can’t._  Except that every time he closes his eyes, he sees long limbs, hazel eyes, wide grin.  He hears that laugh, rumbling up like the engine of a rocket starting to take off.  He smells gas, and sewage, and oranges.  And he wants – fuck.  He doesn’t know what he wants.

Tooru sighs loudly and flops on his stomach.  He hears movement from the other room – maybe Kyo can sense his restlessness.  Or maybe the dog is just hungry.

Wait – _shit._

Tooru bolts up out of bed, practically sprints to the kitchen, and rummages through his pantry until he finds the bag of dog food Iwaizumi left.  He pours some out into the dog’s bowl – probably too much, but he’s in too much of a hurry to reread Iwaizumi’s list of instructions (handwritten on a post-it note, can you believe it?  the guy wouldn’t sit still at a computer long enough to type a decent email) to know for sure.

The second the pellets hit the dog bowl, Kyo goes straight for them, devouring his dinner like a first-year after their first day of training camp.

“You’re fine, Kyo,” Tooru tells the dog, squatting down to rub his head.  Kyo shrugs the hand off, fully focused on filling his stomach – just like his owner, really.

“Yeah.  Fine.  Totally fine.  You won’t tell Iwa-chan about what you did today.  Of course you won’t, you’re a dog.  But then, maybe Iwa-chan can speak dog –”

Tooru’s ramblings are interrupted by the Star Wars theme, emanating tinnily from his bedroom.  He heads over, digs out his phone from where it fell into the crack between his bed and the wall, and looks at the screen.

Well.  What’s that American expression?  Speak of the demon?

“Everything is fine,” Tooru says hurriedly.

“Right,” Iwaizumi replies.  He sounds tired, as though he’s been hitting spikes all day.  (Maybe he has.  Tooru still isn’t entirely sure what a researcher of athletic physiology does.)

“It is!” Tooru insists.  He returns to the kitchen, picks up Kyo’s (now empty) bowl and puts it in the sink.

“Are you sure?”

“ _So_ sure.”  Tooru turns on the tap – it fills the bowl, making the chunks of dog food float.  Like floating shit in a lake during summer camp.  Disgusting.

“So you fed him?  Gave him water?  Took him for a walk?  Pet him?  Let him slobber all over you?”

“Yes, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says.  “I’m … A competent dogsitter.”  He rinses the bowl out and puts it on the counter.  Less disgusting.  (He wonders if there’s any kind of special soap he should be using on the thing, then realizes that asking Iwaizumi that would be admitting defeat, and stays quiet.)

“There was a pause,” Iwaizumi says.

“Yes!  Nice observation skills!  Your boss must be so impressed!”

“Why was there a pause?”

“Um, I was …” Tooru glances around his apartment, as though that’ll help him come up with an excuse.  “Turning my lamp on.”

“Bullshit.  Something happened.”

“Nothing ha -”

“Tell me what happened.”

Tooru sits down at his kichen table.  Kyo stares up at him from his bed, dog eyes wide and pleading.  Somehow, even from across the country, Iwaizumi and his dog are in cahoots.  Tooru hates this.

He huffs out a breath.  “Fine.  I lost Kyo.  For about four hours,” he adds quickly, before Iwaizumi can get mad, “and I found him.  Some weirdo I met on the street helped me.  And actually, I need to talk to you about this asshole, Iwa-chan, because honestly, he almost puts Ushiwaka to _shame_ –”

“Wait.  Hold up,” Iwaizumi interrupts him.  “Go back to the part where you lost my dog for four hours.”

Tooru sighs.  He was hoping this wouldn’t happen.  “Okay, so I was walking Kyo through Shibuya –”

“Shibuya.”

“Yeah, Shibuya.”  Tooru leans back in his chair, lifts up his legs, and lays them out on the adjacent chair.  He wonders if he has any milkbread left.  “Is that bad?”

“It’s one of the most crowded neighborhoods in the city!” Iwaizumi exclaims.  Tooru can tell he’s trying hard not to shout – the university housing they gave him must have very thin walls.  “You _know_ Kyo hates crowds.  Why wouldn’t you take him to the perfectly good park that’s literally five blocks from our apartment?”

Tooru pauses, then starts over.  “So I took him to Shibuya, we were walking around, I saw that billboard – you know, that one for the new Star Wars movie?  I was looking at Rey, admiring how cool she is in every possible way, and then I looked down and Kyo was gone.  So obviously I started looking for him right away –”

“No, you didn’t,” Iwaizumi says, with the weariness of someone who has been dealing with Tooru’s bullshit for twenty-four years.

“Okay, I went and got myself iced coffee, and then I started looking for him,” Tooru says.

Iwaizumi sighs.

“What?” Tooru protests.  “I wanted to be at my most alert!  So I spent two hours looking for him, but it was hard, and he was avoiding me or something, and I started kicking this lamppost.  Which is when the asshole came in.”

“The asshole you mentioned earlier?”

“Yes.  He just came in out of nowhere and started insulting me!”

“Sounds like my kinda guy.”

“Iwa-chan, why are you so _mean_ to me?”

“Because you deserve it.  Clearly this guy, whoever he is, agrees.”

Tooru pouts, then remembers Iwaizumi can’t see him, and says, “At least two people agreed on killing Han Solo, Iwa-chan.”

“Oh, God.  Not Han Solo.”

“ _Yes_ , Han Solo!  I understand why they did it, I do – shock value, emotional pull, not having the budget to pay Harrison Ford for more than one movie – but did they really _have_ to?  Did they have to kill off the best character in the franchise, possibly in any franchise ever?  Did they have to deprive the world of the swashbuckling smuggler with a heart of gold, role model for kids and adults alike?   _Did they_?”

There is a pause, in which Tooru realizes that at some point during that speech he stood up and started angrily gesturing at the fridge.

“Oikawa, sit down,” Iwaizumi says.

Tooru sits down.

“Keep telling me about your asshole.”

“He’s not _my_ asshole,” Tooru retorts.  But he continues, “So, this guy started insulting me, and then he started just, like, following me around while I searched for Kyo.  Like he was getting off on my frustration or something.  But you know what the worst part is?”

“What is the worst part, Oikawa?”

“He eventually offered to help.  And he just, like, called up his friend who’s good with dogs, and his friend said to get one of those dog whistles – you know, the special ones that make a really high pitched noise that only dogs can hear?”

“Oikawa, I _have_ one of those,” Iwaizumi says, sounding somehow both thoroughly annoyed and utterly entertained.  “I told you to use it if Kyo ever ran off on a walk.”

“What?” Tooru exclaims.  “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You definitely don’t.”

“I definitely do.  Check the second-to-top shelf of the rightmost cabinet.”

Tooru does as instructed and, sure enough, there’s a tiny silver whistle, identical to the one he just purchased, lying in between bags of rice.

“Well, now you have two,” he tells Iwaizumi.  “In case you lose one.  You’re welcome.”

Tooru sits back down, then, on second thought, gets up and opens the cabinet again.  Looks like he does still have some milkbread left.  “You know, Iwa-chan,” he says to the amazed silence on the other end of the phone, “the strangest thing?  This asshole seemed kind-of familiar.  Like I’ve met him before.  Or seen him from far away.”

“Maybe it’s a _sign_ ,” Iwaizumi says, composure apparently regained.  “Maybe you’re _meant to be_.”

Tooru shakes his head and takes a bite of his milkbread.  “Nah.  There’s no way.  Maybe we played his team in high school or something?  But that wouldn’t make sense, I remember everyone we played in high school –”

“Oikawa, I’m going to bed,” Iwaizumi interrupts him.  “I’ve gotta be up at six tomorrow.  Just … bring the whistle with you next time you take Kyo for a walk.  Bring both whistles, I don’t care.  And tell your asshole, if you see him again, that he’s a great person and I fully support him in all of his future endeavors.”

“He’s not _my asshole,_ ” Tooru says again – but to no avail.  Iwaizumi has already hung up.

Tooru looks at Kyo, curled up in his bed like an innocent doggy pastry.  “Why is your owner so mean to me?” Tooru asks.

Kyo just barks.

* * *

Tooru doesn’t bring either whistle the next time he takes Kyo for a walk, just to spite Iwaizumi.

Well, that’s a lie – he got out one of the whistles, then forgot it on the kitchen counter.  But the fact remains that he has no easy immediate means of calling Kyo if the dog wanders, and yet he’s doing fine.  It’s a beautiful day, sunny and clear with just the slightest breeze making the oppressive Tokyo humidity somewhat bearable.  The park is crowded, but not too much so – it’s early enough and Sunday enough that most of the city is still asleep, recovering from its collective hangover.

Tooru jogs lightly, keeping a tight hold of Kyo’s leash but mostly paying attention to his music.  The chorus comes on just as he crests the top of a small hill, as though some running god wants him to sprint – and he does, legs pumping muscles burning wind whipping at his back –

 _Shit._  A sudden tug on the leash forces Tooru to stop so suddenly, he nearly stumbles over the path.

He turns back, annoyed, to find that Kyo has … wound his leash around a tree.  Perfect.

Tooru stands still for a second, considering all the myriad of ways he has fucked up in the lead-up to this moment, then sighs and bends down to untangle the leash.  It shouldn’t be so hard to accomplish – or, it wouldn’t, if Kyo wasn’t straining at the thing as though he’s trying to escape, chasing at a squirrel that’s swiftly climbing aloft into the branches of an adjacent tree.

“You dumb dog,” Tooru mutters.  Chasing after animals, making him stop his run, refusing to walk backwards for _two seconds –_

“Need some help?”

Tooru looks up, and – it’s that guy again.  The same laughing hazel eyes, the same crooked grin.  He looks taller from this angle, all long legs and taut muscles.  Those legs hadn’t been visible the first time they met, hidden under jeans, but now they’re practically inviting Tooru to stare, beneath short, tight shorts that should probably be illegal in at least seven countries and – Tooru hates this.

He feels a little light-headed as he stands up.  Tells himself it’s just because he hasn’t eaten breakfast yet this morning.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demands.

Hazel eyes blink lazily back at him.  “I run here.”

Tooru narrows his own eyes.  “ _I_ run here.”

“Two people can run in the same place.  It’s called a public park.”

“Okay, but how come I’ve never seen you here before?” Tooru demands.

The guy shrugs.  “Beats me.  I run here at the same time every morning.”

Tooru glares first at him, then, coming to an epiphany, at the dog currently barking in vein at his escaped target.  Fucking _dog,_ getting his routine all messed up and bringing assholes with weird hair into his perfectly good life …

Or, specifically, one asshole.  Who is now looking at Tooru expectantly.

“Did you say something?” Tooru asks.

“Do you want my help or not?” the guy says, apparently for the second time.

“I didn’t ask for it,” Tooru replies.  But he’s already bending back down, pointing at the tangle in the leash.  The guy squats next to him, his proximity definitely not in the least distracting, and examines the problem.

“Hey,” he says after a moment.  “What’s the dog’s name?”

“Kyo,” Tooru supplies.  “Why do you need –”

“Hey, Kyo.”  The dog startles at the sound of his name, then turns back towards the guy, who begins lightly petting his head.  “Hey.  Hey, you’re a good boy, right?  Yeah, such a good boy.”

The guy’s voice has gone oddly soft, taking on a new tone from the grating, snarky banter Tooru’s used to – it’s sweet, like adding milk and sugar to coffee.

Tooru’s so caught offguard by that voice, he doesn’t figure out the second part of the plan until the guy looks at him pointedly, motioning at the leash with his head.

Tooru feels his mouth drop open a little, quickly closes it, and starts untangling.  With Kyo holding still, it’s as easy as hitting serves.

Within a few seconds, he’s got all the tangles straightened out.  The other guy stands up, wiping his hands on his shorts.  “See?  No problem.  It’s just like getting first-years to do flying falls –”

Kyo takes off at a sprint down the path.

“Get back here, you fucking mutt!” Tooru yells, running after him.

After he’s caught Kyo (only because he stopped to piss in a bush, but nobody needs to know that), wound the leash so many times around his wrist he couldn’t let go even if he wanted to, and headed back in the direction from whence they came, he asshole is still standing there, laughing like he’s never seen comedy before.

“You know, you probably shouldn’t call that dog a fucking mutt in public,” he tells Tooru.  “There could be kids here.”

“Kids are gonna learn to swear sometime or other anyway,” Tooru retorts.  He stops and points straight at the guy, index finger an outstretched spear.  “You said something about flying falls.”

“Huh?”   The guy looks confused for a moment, then says, “Oh, yeah.  I was the captain of my high school volleyball team, and to get the first-years to do drills, I used to distract them by telling them I’d pay for dinner if they were good.”

“All captains do that,” Tooru says dismissively.

“Yeah?  Do all captains _also_ pay for popsicles after?”

“The good ones do.”  Tooru pauses and examines the other man more carefully.  There’s something about him that seems so _familiar …_

“Which team were you the captain of?” he asks.

“Nekoma,” the guy says.  “Why?”

 _Oh._  Tooru slaps his palm to his forehead.  “Nekoma,” he repeats.  “Of course!  You must be … Wait, I know this … Kuroo.”

“Kuroo Tetsurou,” the guy – Kuroo, apparently – confirms.  “How did you know that?”

“I did a lot of research, back when I was captain of Aoba Johsai,” Tooru explains.  “I wanted to be knowledgeable, for when my team got to Nationals – and you guys were one of the top Tokyo teams.”

“You didn’t get to Nationals, though?” Kuroo says.  “At least, not when we were in high school.”

“Don’t remind me.”  Tooru starts heading down the path.

“Wait – sorry.”  Kuroo catches up easily.  Tooru hates how long his legs are.  He _hates_ it.  “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

Tooru doesn’t look at him for a moment – but then, Kyo stops (for God only knows what reason) and the sudden movement causes him to jerk his head around.  For all that Kuroo is an irritating smartmouth, he looks strangely … sincere.

“They went to Nationals the next spring, though,” he says.  “Those underclassmen really got their acts together.  I’m still kind-of impressed.  Half of them were such little shits when I was captain.”

“Oh, my God, don’t even talk,” Kuroo replies.  “My underclassmen were something else altogether.  We had this one kid, right, who joined halfway through the year – never played volleyball before in his life, couldn’t block _or_ receive on a team known for its defense, but he wanted to be the ace.”

“That’s unbelievable.  Did you let him play?”

“He had incredible reflexes, so I kind-of had to … But still.  So cocky.”

“Yeah, I had one like that.”

They keep talking, swapping stories about unruly first-years and aggravating opponents until they reach the end of the pathway, Kyo running along by Tooru’s side.  At the edge of the park, there’s a small café – Tooru’s never gone inside before, just sprinted past on the last leg of his run, but when Kuroo heads in, he follows, still in the middle of a story about this one time the whole team told him what kind of ramen they would make him buy them if he fucked up a serve.

“Espresso.  Double milk and sugar,” Kuroo tells the barista. He looks at Tooru.  “And you?”

Well.  The coffee probably won’t be any worse here than it is at the Starbucks next to the gym.

“Caramel macchiato, extra whipped cream,” Tooru says.

* * *

_8 June_

_9:13 A.M._

**me:** he was the captain of one of the big tokyo teams in high school!  thats why he seemed familiar!!!!

 **iwa-chan** **:** Who?

 **me:** the guy i met the other day!!!!  when i. you know

 **iwa-chan** **:** Right, him.

 **iwa-chan** **:** So when’s your date?

 **me:** WHAT

 **iwa-chan** **:** There isn’t a date?

 **me:** WHY WOULD THERE BE

 **me:** I DONT DATE ASSHOLES

 **iwa-chan** **:** Sure.

 **me:** IWACHAAAAAN

 **iwa-chan** **:** Probably better for him.  You’re a terrible boyfriend.

 **me:** WHY WOULD YOU THINK THERES A DATE

 **me:** IWACHAN

 **me:** I W A C H A N

 **iwa-chan** **:** Don’t forget to give Kyo his shots.  Once a week on Tuesdays.

 **me:** I HATE YOU

* * *

Tooru’s life falls into a strange sort of rhythm after that.

He rolls out of bed early, laces up his sneakers, grabs Kyo, and heads to the park – and Kuroo meets them there.  They don’t have any kind of assigned meeting place or time, but they usually end up running into each other, often literally (Tooru has a talent, or perhaps a lack of one, in failing to watch where he’s going.)

They run together, sort-of.  Tooru’s better at long-distance, Kuroo’s long legs make him more of a sprinter, and Kyo just wants to chase squirrels, so a workout of some kind will manage to arise between the three of them for about half an hour before they give up and start walking.  They walk back to the edge of the park, bickering about how hot it is, or whether it’s better to bring a water bottle or use the park water fountains, or how the economy may or may not be going to shit, or why one flavor of ice cream is superior to another, or whether the new James Bond movie is any good.  Kuroo makes fun of Tooru’s space T-shirts, and Tooru makes fun of the awkward way Kuroo runs (his arms go up and down in a way that’s somehow robotic, and his face always looks like he’s trying really hard not to piss.)  Kuroo compares Tooru to old American cartoon characters and Tooru compares Kuroo to poorly costumed Star Trek villains.  Kuroo grins, and Tooru pouts, and Kyo tries to abandon both of them in favor of any dog with a sniffable butt.

They always go out for coffee afterwards.  Kuroo always gets an espresso (“You’re going to kill yourself with that much caffeine,” Tooru tells him) and Tooru always gets a caramel macchiato (“ _You’re_ going to kill yourself with that much sugar,” Kuroo retorts), and Tooru wishes more and more every morning that practice started later.  (Iwaizumi laughs at him over text message, and Kyo barks at him like he _knows_ something.  It’s a little ridiculous – but it’s good.  He thinks he could get used to this.)

And then, they meet in Shibuya again.

Tooru is wandering through the shopping district, searching for a birthday present for his nephew – apparently just buying alien T-shirts and Lego Star Wars kits is no longer acceptable – when he spots a familiar tuft of dark hair across the street.

Almost immediately, like some kind of bizarre instinct, he dashes across with five seconds left on the timer – nearly colliding with a taxi and two bikers on the way.  The street is crowded, and it takes a minute to maneuver through the throngs of schoolkids shouting, businessmen hurrying to meetings, and older women cackling to each other over shopping bags, but Tooru is soon close enough that he can reach out and tap the back of a faded leather jacket.

Kuroo whirls around, eyes wide.

“Hey,” Tooru says.  “Fancy meeting you here.”  It takes every ounce of self-control he can muster not to grin.

“Did you lose your dog again?” Kuroo asks.

Tooru glares at him.  Two seconds into a conversation and he’s already starting shit – but then, Tooru wouldn’t expect anything less.

“No, I’m not stupid enough to bring a dog to _Shibuya,_ ” he replies.

“That’s not what you said three weeks ago.”

“Okay, well … Shut up, alright?” Tooru says, angry at himself for his inability to conjure up a more sophisticated retort.

“Make me,” Kuroo tells him, eyes glinting dangerously – and for a moment Tooru imagines it – what it would feel like to take just a couple of steps, to tilt his head up, to bite into that obnoxious, exasperating, gorgeous smirk –

“Get out of the way!”  Someone elbows past in a hurry, jostling Tooru off to one side.

He starts walking, heading in the direction of one of the department stores.  Kuroo follows, matching his stride easily.

“So, what _are_ you doing here?” Kuroo asks.

“Getting a birthday present for my nephew.”

“You have a nephew?”

“Yeah – Takeru, seventeen this year, and too old for alien crap, according to my sister.”

“Seventeen is pretty generous, I think.  I’d say ten is too old.”

Tooru unzips his jacket, revealing a T-shirt with a cartoonish drawing of Spock wearing sunglasses.  The caption reads, “ILLOGICOOL.”  He raises one eyebrow in a wordless _fight me._

Kuroo has to step into a sidestreet and lean against a wall, as he’s laughing too hard to move.

* * *

It takes Tooru much longer to find Takeru a birthday present than it should.

He’d imagined the errand would take an hour, hour and a half, tops – he’d just browse through some big store, find a decent shirt and maybe some socks (kids always need socks, right?), grab some coffee, and go home.  But with Kuroo, the department store is no longer just a repository for discounted designer clothes.  It’s a labyrinth of possibility, impossible new horrors around every corner.  There are bedazzled handbags, pants with tears in all the wrong places, T-shirts possibly even more embarrassing than Tooru’s, and all of them begging to be mocked.  Kuroo talks about the _kids these days_ as though he’s an ancient grandfather sipping tea in his hand-crafted rocking chair, and Tooru pulls faces at the horrors, each more ghastly than the next, and both of them narrowly miss getting thrown out of the store in three different departments.

After over two hours in the store, Tooru finds a button-up shirt in a reasonable color that his sister hopefully won’t hate, sneaks in a pair of alien socks that she definitely will, and gets through the incredibly long line at the counter – but he doesn’t go home.  Not even close.  He and Kuroo end up wandering through Shibuya, pushing through crowds and pointing out terrible billboards in the same breath.

“I remember when this was an ad for a furniture company,” Kuroo says, pointing at a board currently depicting what might actually be the entire cast of Bleach.

“Yeah?  Well, I remember when _that_ was a coffeehouse,” Tooru refutes, pointing at a nail salon.

“I remember when it was an American fast-food place,” Kuroo counters.

“It was an American fast-food place?” Tooru repeats.  He can’t imagine how – the building seems so tiny, barely wider across than the bathroom in his apartment.

Kuroo smirks.  “You gotta remember, Oikawa, I’ve lived here my whole life.  I know this city better than you ever will.”

“Prove it,” Tooru says.

Tooru’s made a lot of unwise decisions recently, but that – _Prove it_ – really [takes the cake.]  Kuroo winks at him, then melts away into the crowd, first legs, then jacket, then hair disappearing – like the Cheshire cat, laughing into the darkness.

“Shit,” Tooru curses, and starts to run.

Kuroo leads him through the main street, then down alleyways and up staircases Tooru had never knew existed.  It’s strange – hidden within the busy shopping district is a whole different neighborhood, of dimly lit sidestreets too narrow to fit cars and tiny izakayas with less seats than Tooru’s kitchen table and peeling signs that advertise movies that came out two years ago.  These are vestiges of an older Shibuya, left over like crabgrass poking up beneath the cracks of a concrete sidewalk, and yet this place seems far from dead.  It’s crowded with old friends heading out for dinner, crowded with laughter overflowing through open windows, crowded with smells of dumplings and sake that make Tooru’s mouth water.

He stops near one ramen place to inhale – and is so focused on wishing he could fill his stomach with this alone that he forgets to look and see where Kuroo’s headed next.

“Hey, idiot!” comes a shout from up ahead.  “What’re you waiting for?”

Tooru turns, blinking into the waning daylight.  Kuroo is standing by a stop sign – no, he’s leaning on the stop sign, what is with him and _leaning_ – with his hands cupped around his mouth, a makeshift megaphone.

“I’m hungry!” Tooru yells back

“Good!  It’s on the next block!”

 _What’s_ on the next block, Tooru wants to ask, but he doesn’t have time – Kuroo’s taken off again.  He huffs a sigh, gazes longingly at the ramen, and follows.

* * *

What’s on the next block is, apparently, a tiny izakaya.  It’s not much different from the others they’ve passed by – it has the same front counter, the same line of stools, the same cracking plaster – but it does have one advantage (or, perhaps, disadvantage): a massive neon sign proclaiming that this is _THE OWL._

As Tooru approaches, he finds Kuroo already sitting on one of the stools, long legs hanging down like just-washed sheets hanging down from a poorly-hung clothesline.  He’s talking to a man in an apron, presumably the owner, with a steady build and the most ridiculous hair Tooru has ever seen.  It’s white, even though the guy doesn’t look much older than Tooru, and sticks up as though plastered by gel – although why someone would want to style his hair like _that_ , Tooru has no idea.

But then, his stomach rumbles again, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten since this morning.  Strange hair or no strange hair, this is where he’s going to get dinner.  Tooru steps inside – as much as he _can_ step inside, considering the whole place is open to the street – and sits down next to Kuroo.

“Ah, so the slowpoke finally arrives,” Kuroo says, turning to smirk at him.

“You have longer legs than I do,” Tooru retorts.  “And you knew where you were going!  I turned the wrong way at first and had to go back!”

“That’s just because you have a terrible sense of direction.”  Kuroo swivels around to face the owner.  “Two yakisobas.  And make them big.”

“You got it,” the guy says.  He reaches up, opening a cupboard on the side of the cooking area and pulling something out.

“Wait, I don’t get to choose what I eat?” Tooru asks.

“Nope,” Kuroo replies.

“Why?”

“Because.  Bokuto’s yakisoba is the best.”

“Aw, thanks, bro.”  The owner turns back around, bottle of sake in hand.  He grabs three glasses from below the counter, sets them up, and pours – as he’s pouring, Tooru realizes that the bottle is labeled with a cat face, scrawled in red marker.

“Anytime, bro,” Kuroo says.

The guy smiles – and then, it hits Tooru.

“You’re Bokuto Koutarou!” he practically shouts.

Boktuo stops pouring, leaving Tooru’s glass still empty, and frowns at him.  “Yeah – how did you know?”

Tooru points at him.  “How did I know?!  You were one of the best aces in the country!  I saw one of your matches at Nationals, our third year.  Your spikes were incredible.”

Bokuto’s face breaks out into a wide grin.  “Kuroo’s right,” he says.  “You really are a nerd.”

“What?!”  Tooru looks from Bokuto to Kuroo – who’s smirking like he just won a match point.  “I’m not a nerd!”

“Yeah?  Show Bokuto the shirt you’re wearing, and tell me you’re not a nerd.”

 _Shit._  Tooru forgot about the shirt.  Maybe Iwaizumi’s right, and he should stop wearing his alien shirts in public.  It would save him at least some humiliation.

“Wait, what’s the shirt?” Bokuto asks.  “I wanna see!”

“You definitely don’t,” Tooru tells him.

“You definitely do,” Kuroo corrects.

“I do!” Bokuto insists.  His eyes get very wide – kind-of like an owl’s.  Wasn’t Fukorodani’s mascot an owl?  That would explain the name, Tooru thinks.

“If you show me, I’ll give you a discount,” Bokuto pleads.  “Half off for friends and cool people!”

Well.  That’s an offer Tooru can’t refuse.  He unzips his jacket, revealing the (now infamous) shirt.

Bokuto laughs – a loud, euphoric sound, like rain on a hot summer day.

“Like you wouldn’t have given him a discount anyway, you big lug,” Kuroo says, flicking Bokuto’s forehead from across the counter.

Bokuto shrugs.  “Yeah, well.  I still got to see the shirt!  It’s a cool shirt!”

“Do you like Star Trek, too?” Tooru asks, leaning forward eagerly.

“I liked the movies,” Bokuto says.

“Old ones or new ones?”

“I’ve only seen the new ones.  Who’s that guy, with the Scottish accent?”

“Scotty?”

“Yeah, him!  I like him.  He’s funny.  And the girl, I forget her name – she’s badass.”

“Uhura,” Tooru supplies.  “The new movies are good, but they have a lot of problems.  Like, J. J. Abrams didn’t even like Star Trek that much, he had no concept of Gene Roddenberry’s original purpose in creating the series, or the huge impact it was meant to have on American society, and –”

Tooru’s explanation is suddenly cut short by a large hand covering his mouth.

“How about you make dinner,” Kuroo says pleasantly, “and _then_ Oikawa can finish explaining the sociopolitical complexities of Star whateverthefuck?”

His hand is warm, and oddly soft, for someone who played volleyball for years.  Tooru bites it.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Kuroo exclaims, waving his hand wildly in the air.  “ _Dude._ ”

Tooru grins.  “I can explain the sociopolitical complexities of Star Trek _while_ you make dinner,” he tells Bokuto.

“Alright,” Bokuto agrees.  “But first, you have to tell me all the main characters’ names, because I completely forget.”

* * *

“That was a good dinner,” Tooru says.

“Yeah,” Kuroo agrees.  “Good.”

They’re strolling through city streets, neon signs slicing through the twilight.  There’s a metro station around here somewhere, Kuroo swears he knows it, but he’s unsteady on his long, long legs, staggering ever so slightly like a spider that lost its web.

Tooru would like to make fun of him – but stringing words together is hard, glasses of sake running together in his memory and his bloodstream.  He hasn’t been drunk like this since college – has never been drunk quite like this, not from parties and dancing but from a couple of friends and conversations that stretch hours.

“I like Bokuto,” he says.   _Like._  What a funny word.  The long _l,_ the bright _i._  Like saying _eye,_ or _aye._  Like saying _yes._

“Yeah,” Kuroo says.  “Bokuto’s good.”

“Why is he …”  Tooru starts.  Frowns.  Starts over.  “Why does he …”

“Why does he work there, when he could’ve been one of the top aces in the nation?” Kuroo asks.

Kuroo stops and grabs a street sign.  Holds up his hand to ask Tooru to stop.  (How he can walk like that, but still manage to form full sentences, Tooru has no idea.)

“Yeah.”  Tooru stops at the corner, waits.

Kuroo takes a deep breath, looks up at the building next to them – playing an ad for some jewelry company on an endless loop, _buy these pearls for your girlfriend and she’ll never stop thanking you_ – then starts moving again.

“He could’ve been.  He got scouted, went to college with this huge scholarship, so many people so certain he’d make it big – but he fucked it up.  Landed wrong.  In a practice match.  Not even a tournament.  One wrong move, and now he can’t run, can’t jump.  It’s such shit.”

There’s a bitterness in his words – not anger, exactly, but resentment.  Like a bruise from a cut that healed years ago.  He shuffles with his head down, arms in his pockets.

“Yeah,” Tooru says.  Echoes.  For want of a better phrase.  “Such shit.”

“He’s okay now, though,” Kuroo goes on.  “He likes his izakaya – it was his grandfather’s, did you know that?  Family business, got customers who’ve been loyal for generations.  And he coaches a bit, at an elementary school in his neighborhood.”

Tooru pictures Bokuto’s easy smile, his unapologetic enthusiasm.  “He’s good at that.”

“Yeah,” Kuroo says.  “Yeah, he is.”

They turn the corner – and Tooru sees, across the street, the glint of a metro sign.  The words on it look familiar.  He points.

“What?” Kuroo asks.

“Isn’t that … the way home?”

Kuroo looks.  Squints.  Leans forward a little.  He stumbles, and Tooru has the strangest urge to reach out and catch him – but then he rights himself, standing with feet splayed at a right angle upon the sidewalk.

“It is.”  He nods to himself, head dipping towards his jacket, then starts heading across the street.

Tooru watches him for a moment – he’s like a rag doll, all limbs and no control ambling through the world with no sense of direction.  It’s a completely different Kuroo from the one that Tooru could barely keep up with earlier, and he’s torn between wanting to throw his arm around Kuroo’s shoulders to hold him up and wanting to take a video for posterity.

“Come on!” Kuroo shouts, from the middle of the intersection.  He waves one arm in what’s probably meant to be a “come here” gesture, but ends up as more of a full-on flail.

Tooru does.  He hurries into the intersection, puts one arm around Kuroo’s shoulders.  It’s a little awkward with their difference in height, but he’s used this arm to serve three aces in a row – he can hold up one oversized alleycat.  The lights from nearby advertisements fall in patterns across the ground, like projections from stained-glass windows, painting them blue and purple and green.

“Hey,” he says.

Kuroo blinks at him.  “Hi.”

Someone honks – and Tooru remembers that, _shit_ , they’re still in the middle of the street.

“Come on,” he tells Kuroo.  And together, one step at a time, they make it across the intersection and to the subway.  The steps are a challenge, digging Kuroo’s metro card out of his jacket pocket is somehow even _more_ of a challenge, but they discover that this station is on a line leading to both of their neighborhoods, so it could be worse.

The platform is mostly empty, except for a couple of old men talking quietly and a young woman, headphones locking her into her own little world.  Tooru takes a seat on one of the metal benches and watches as Kuroo walks out into the center of the station, arms outstretched.

“But release me from my bands with the help of your good hands!” he shouts.  His voice echoes on the tile, bouncing like a volleyball that someone hit too hard.  “Gentle breath of yours my sails must fill, or else my project fails, which was to please. Now I want –”

“What are you doing?” Tooru calls out.

“Shakespeare!” Kuroo replies.  He twirls a little bit, a lopsided ballerina.  Tooru’s brain supplies the word _adorable,_ then quickly berates itself.  “Prospero’s final speech!   _The Tempest_!”

“Who the fuck is that?”

Kuroo stops twirling and looks at Tooru, mouth agape.  “Shakespeare,” he repeats.  “My dude.  My guy.  Billy Shakes.  British poet and playwright.  Master of dick jokes.”

Tooru shakes his head.  “Never heard of him.”

“But he’s so cool!  And important!  And good at writing!  His puns are … They’re legendary.”

Tooru shrugs.

Kuroo droops, melancholy.  The wind all gone out of his sails.  “Nobody appreciates him as much as I do.  My students say he’s too hard.  Too _hard_.  It’s antiquated language, yeah, but it’s brilliant.  He practically invented the modern English language!”

Tooru stares at him.  Somehow, even after a month – has it really been a month? – of knowing this guy, he can still be so surprising.  “Wait, Kuroo,” he says, “what is your _job_?”

“I teach English literature,” Kuroo replies.  “To high-schoolers.”

“You teach _English literature,_ ” Tooru repeats, “and can apparently … can quote this _Shakespeare_ guy at _will_ , but you … say I’m weird … for wearing space shirts?”

If he was sober, he thinks mildly, he probably could’ve thought of a better burn.  But as it is, Kuroo blinks at him, wide-eyed and shocked, like a kid who just had his favorite toy taken away.

“You’re a nerd,” he eventually says, “but Shakespeare is literature.  There are scholars who have devoted their entire lives to studying him.  I get _paid_ for what I do.  You’re just a weirdo who likes aliens way too much.”

The train comes, then – roaring past like a thunderstorm on electric rail.  One would think that would give Tooru time to think of a reply, but instead, all he can come up with is:

“Shakespeare is dumb.”

The doors open.  Kuroo lurches inside.  Luckily, there are a couple of seats free – Tooru takes one near the middle, and Kuroo falls in next to him.  He slumps in the hard plastic mold, his legs splayed out in the aisle and head falling to one side.  It’s coming dangerously close to leaning on Tooru’s shoulder.

“Not dumb,” he announces.  “A genius.”

“Dumb,” Tooru says.

“Invented hundreds of new words.”

“Dumb.”

“Wrote plays that people from all classes could appreciate.”

“Dumb.”

“Took old stories and made them complex and interesting.”

“Dumb.”

With each word, Kuroo’s head falls closer and closer – until it’s resting on Tooru’s shoulder, his perpetual bedhead soft and messy.  Tooru is hit by the strangest urge to run his fingers through it.

He settles an arm around Kuroo’s shoulders, and Kuroo hums contentedly.  He’s like a cat, Tooru thinks – a cat taking a nap in a patch of sunlight, completely unaware of the world around it.

“Shakespeare’s not dumb,” Kuroo says, quiet.

“Okay,” Tooru tells him.  “Okay.”

* * *

_29 June_

_1_ _:07 P.M._

 **Unknown Number:** hey

 **Unknown Number:** you still want to meet my cat ???

 **me:** … who is this

 **Unknown Number:** kuroo

 **me:** oh

**[“Unknown Number” has been added to contacts.  New contact “asshole” has been created.]**

**me:** hey

 **me:** when did i say i wanted to meet your cat

 **asshole:** last night i think

 **asshole:** you also put my number into your phone

 **asshole:** with the contact name “call if abducted by aliens”

 **me:** so did you get abducted by aliens?

 **asshole:** … no

 **me:** then why tf are you even texting me

 **asshole:** i thought you wanted to meet my cat

 **me:** … okay

 **asshole:** is that an “okay thats an acceptable reason to text me” or an “okay i want to meet your cat”

 **me:** it’s an “okay someone really wants me to meet his cat”

 **asshole:** i have a great cat

 **asshole:** possibly the best cat

 **me:** if youre sure

 **asshole:** im pretty sure

 **me:** alright if you insist

 **me:** i will meet your cat

 **asshole:** i knew you wanted to

 **asshole:** ill send you my address

* * *

Kuroo’s apartment isn’t what Tooru expected.

He isn’t sure why – he wasn’t expecting any particular degree of neatness or messiness, or for volleyball posters to cover the walls, or some specific color scheme.  He wasn’t expecting it to be big and fancy or old and dilapidated – any school elite enough to hire someone just to teach English literature must be pretty well-off.  But still, as he steps through the doorway, slips out of his sneakers (leaving them beneath a _Great Gatsby_ poster, no less) he’s still taken by surprise enough to stand there for a moment, just looking.

Maybe it’s the books.  The place is full of them – books overflowing off of shelves, books piled up on tables, books stashed in corners.  Books with peeling bindings, books still in plastic covers, books that appear to have lost their covers.  Above each pile is a large sticky note with a word scrawled in marker – Kuroo’s handwriting is terrible, but Tooru can read enough of them to figure out that they’re different subject headings: fiction on the bookshelf, history on the kitchen table, philosophy by the TV, science by the bathroom door, architecture on top of the refrigerator.  This place is like what Tooru used to imagine Smaug’s cave looked like when he read _The Hobbit,_ except smaller and filled with books instead of dwarf treasure.

“Are all of these yours?” he asks, picking up a book on the history of the Mexican revolution, flipping through it idly, and settling it back on top of its pile.

“All of what?” comes a voice from the other end of the apartment.  Kuroo disappeared into his room to grab his cat, who, apparently, is not great with people.  Or often willing to leave her napping spot.

“These books,” Tooru elaborates.  There’s one on top of the refrigerator labeled _International Architecture in Interwar Japan._  He had no idea you could write an entire book on just that.

“Of course they are,” Kuroo says, emerging from his room.  His arms are cradled, carrying what must be Kenma, although Tooru can’t quite see her.  “But don’t ask me if I’ve read them all.”

“Okay,” Tooru says.  “Have you read them all?”

Kuroo glares at him.  “First of all, I hate you.  And second of all, someday, I will have.   _Someday._ ”

Tooru stifles the urge to laugh.  “Alright, if you say so.”

Kuroo holds his glare for a moment, then moves closer.  “Okay, this is Kenma,” he says, opening his arms to reveal speckled gray fur and large, dark eyes.  “She’s a little shy, so maybe just … petting, for now?”

Tooru reaches out and tentatively places his hand on the cat’s head.  She closes her eyes and nuzzles into the touch, making quiet rumbling sounds.  A memory from the previous night threatens to surface, but Tooru holds it back, focusing on the tiny, incredible creature before him.

“She’s so soft,” he tells Kuroo.

Kuroo grins.  “Yeah.  You wanna hold her?”

“Can I?”

He can.  It takes a minute and some complicated maneuvering, but soon, Kenma is cradled in his arms, purring like a combustion engine.  She’s much quieter than Kyo, who seems unable to go five minutes without barking at something, whether it’s the TV, kids shouting in the park, or Tooru’s leg.  Tooru likes cats, he decides.  Maybe he should get one.

“You know,” he says, not looking at Kuroo, “I can’t believe you named your cat after your setter from high school.”

For a moment, there is silence.  Tooru glances up to find Kuroo staring at him – not glaring, just … looking.  Curious.

“When did I tell you Kenma is named after my setter from high school,” Kuroo says slowly.

Oh, shit.   _Shit._  He didn’t.  He absolutely, definitely didn’t.

“Um,” Tooru says.

“Oikawa.”  Kuroo peers at him, unblinking.  Tooru hasn’t been this terrified since he was picked to serve first against Shiratorizawa in his first year of high school.  “Have you been … Googling me?”

“Um,” Tooru says.  “Uh.  I need to go.”

He practically launches Kenma at Kuroo – the cat _mrows_ in surprise – and starts backing towards the front door.  “I’m, um, getting a phone call.  Really important phone call.”

Kuroo watches him with bemusement.  “Your phone isn’t ringing.”

“It is!” Tooru exclaims.  He takes it out of his pocket and holds it aloft, as though that’ll prove anything. “It’s on silent!  Super important phone call!  Gotta go right now immediately!”

And without another word, he turns and runs – out of the apartment, down the stairs, and out onto the street.  He stops next to the front door and just leans there for a moment, recovering his breath.

And then, Tooru does what he always does in distressing situations: he calls Iwaizumi.

“What the hell is it,” Iwaizumi says, gruffly.  “I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

“Iwa-chan, you’ve gotta help me, I fucked up, I totally fucked up.”

The voice on the other end suddenly grows more urgent.  “What did you do?  Are you hurt?  Did you practice too much?  Can someone there help you?”  He waits for a response, then adds, “Oikawa?”

“Kuroo found out I Googled him,” Tooru says.

There is a pause.  Then, Iwaizumi starts to laugh.

“What the fuck, Iwa-chan, that’s _mean_!” Tooru protests.  But to no avail – the laughter only grows.  Tooru wonders, not for the first time, why people seem to get so much enjoyment out of his misery.

“Alright, well, if you’re not going to be helpful, I’ve gotta go,” Tooru tells him.

“You just –” Iwaizumi says, between chuckles.  “You.  I can’t believe you _Googled_ him.”

“Yeah, okay.”  Tooru hangs up and starts to jog home – if the rest of his life is destined to be a shambles, he might as well keep his endurance up.

* * *

_29 June_

_2:46 P.M._

**iwa-chan** **:** Just ask him out already.

 **iwa-chan** **:** It’s not hard.

 **me:** HOW CAN YOU BE SO SURE

 **iwa-chan** **:** You’ll never know until you try.

* * *

_3:11 P.M._

**me:** for the record it was an extremely important phone call

 **asshole:** was it with the aliens?

 **me:** SHUT UP OKAY

 **me:** SHUT. UP.

 **asshole:** never

* * *

_4 July_

_5:34 P.M._

**asshole:** you doing anything tonight?

 **me:** i was going to watch some tng

 **me:** why???

 **asshole:** i dont know what tng is but im assuming it’s a nerd thing and am therefore judging you

 **asshole:** want to get dinner instead of doing whatever nerd thing that is?

 **me:** TNG STANDS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION AS IN STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION WHICH IS AN EXCELLENT AND CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SERIES

 **me:** BUT I SUPPOSE PICARD CAN WAIT A COUPLE OF HOURS

 **asshole:** good

 **asshole:** meet at bokuto’s in an hour?

 **me:**  you got it

* * *

Tooru is late.

Not because he was intending to be – well, he could’ve left a few minutes earlier, maybe, or not stopped to fix his hair in that shop window, or not missed the train because he was Snapchatting Iwaizumi a picture of relaxation medicine with the caption “u could use some of this” – but mostly because Bokuto’s izakaya was so hard to find.  It’s tucked into an alleyway behind a shopping mall inside an entertainment district, and it’s almost exactly like hundreds of other izakayas in a literal five-kilometer radius.  It’s honestly a miracle that Tooru finds the place at all.  But he does, after squinting at street signs, making U-turns, and finally asking for help from an old woman who clearly knows her shit.

As he approaches, he finds Kuroo already sitting there, on the same stool as before – two from the left, just slightly lower than the others.  Kuroo turns to look at him, and there’s something odd about his expression.  Something strange and uncertain, like a captain at the start of his first game, when he’s not quite sure his team will take him seriously.  If Tooru didn’t know better, he’d call it nervousness.

But the emotion, whatever it is, dissipates the moment he catches sight of the shirt Tooru’s wearing.  “Han Solo?” he asks.  “Really?”

Tooru bristles.  “Han Solo is an incredible character,” he tells Kuroo.  “Charming.  Charismatic.  Can talk his way out of anything.  Has the best ship in the galaxy.”

“You don’t think he’s a little cliché?”

“ _Cliché_?” Tooru repeats.  He feels as though someone has punched him in the gut.  “How _dare_ you?”

“Well, I mean, the whole dangerous smuggler with a heart of gold thing is kind-of a stereotype,” Kuroo says.  He launches into a whole analysis of the different tropes exemplified in Star Wars, and Tooru looks around for something hard to hit him with.

It’s only then that he realizes they are not, in fact, alone at the counter.

“Hello, Oikawa,” Ushijima Wakatoshi says.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Tooru replies.

Ushijima frowns.  He’s just as weird and aggravating as ever, with his stupid haircut and his stupid stony expression and his stupid … everything, really.  He’s gotten taller.  Tooru hates that.

“I don’t think that’s a very polite way to greet someone,” he says.  And Tooru hates him.

“Hey!  Wakatoshi!” Bokuto exclaims, emerging from the pantry.  “You didn’t tell me you were in town!”

“The national team got invited to some kind of talk show,” Ushijima explains.  “I thought I would stop by.  And give you this.”  He pulls out a plastic shopping bag – from where, Tooru isn’t sure – and hands it to Bokuto.

Bokuto opens the bag, revealing a T-shirt with a picture of what looks like a very strange, very upset frog.  “Dude!” Bokuto says.  “Dude.  Did you get this in New York?”

Ushijima nods.

“It’s so cool, thank you!”  Bokuto steps around the counter and gives Ushijima a hug – which, for all that Tooru spent a significant part of high school comparing him to an emotionless tree, Ushijima accepts like an actual, human person with actual, human emotions.  Tooru watches the spectacle play out like it’s some kind of horror movie, fully expecting someone to jump out and throw a bag over his head any second.

“I have to go soon, the interview starts in half an hour,” Ushijima says.

“Alright, good luck!” Bokuto tells him.  “Come back later if you have a chance.  And if not, tell Tendou I said hi!”

Ushijima nods again, then starts walking.  “Nice seeing you, Koutarou,” he says, waving a little.  “Kuroo.  Oikawa.”

“Good luck, man,” Kuroo says.

“Um,” Tooru says.

Once Ushijima is out of earshot, Tooru whirls on Bokuto.  “You’re friends with _Ushijima_?” he demands.  “Since _when_?”

“We went to the same college,” Bokuto explains, going back around the counter and grabbing Kuroo’s bottle of sake.  “But we’d met at Nationals before that.  How do you know him?  Or, wait – isn’t he from your district?”

“Unfortunately.”  Tooru grits his teeth and reminds himself that Bokuto is a very nice person who doesn’t deserve to have his property damaged.

Bokuto raises one eyebrow.  “Sounds like there’s some bad blood there.  If I were you, I’d try to make peace with him.  I can give you his phone number, if you want.”

Make peace with Ushijima?  Tooru would sooner hold his right hand under boiling water.

“I’ll … think about it,” he tells Bokuto.

“Great!”  Bokuto grins, suddenly.  “It’s good that he couldn’t stay, though – I wanted the izakaya to be empty tonight.”

It’s been empty half the nights Tooru’s been there, and Bokuto barely charges him and Kuroo anything, but he doesn’t say that.  Kuroo, on the other hand, is more questioning.

“Why?” he asks, eying his friend suspiciously.

“I’m trying to embarrass you on your date!” Bokuto says cheerfully.

Tooru stops breathing for a second.

He coughs, reminds his lungs that yes, their function is _crucial to his continued survival,_ and asks, “ _What_ date?”

“Um.  This date?”  Bokuto looks back and forth between Tooru and Kuroo – whose face is currently turning red as a stoplight.

“This is a _date_ ,” Tooru says.  He swivels around and repeats it, this time to Kuroo.  “This is a date.”  And then, putting his head down on the counter, “Oh, my God, this is a _date_.”

“Generally when people invite you out for dinner it’s called a date, yeah,” Kuroo tells him.  His voice is teasing, but there’s an undercurrent of nervousness to it.  “But, I mean, if you misunderstood.  If you don’t want –”

“No, I do want.  I do want!” Tooru says, voice much more high-pitched than he’d like it to be.  He picks his head up for a second, looks at Kuroo – still red, but grinning as though he just won Nationals – and puts it back down.

“So, two orders of yakisoba, right?” Bokuto asks, from somewhere above him.  “And do you want to see photos of Kuroo from junior high?  Because I have them.  Like, right here.  On my phone.”

Tooru reemerges, grinning.  “Absolutely,” he says.

Kuroo groans and puts his head on the table.

* * *

“So, um, this is me,” Tooru says.  “My building.  Where I live.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Kuroo tells him.

Yet somehow, neither of them moves.

The street is quiet, in front of Tooru’s building.  There is no blazing neon in this part of Tokyo – just streetlamps and lit windows, casting soft patterns of gold onto the sidewalk.  The sky is dark and clear far above them, and if Tooru squints hard enough, he thinks he can make out a couple of stars.  Galaxies.  Impossibly far away.  He wonders if aliens can see any of this.  What they’d think, if they could.

“Hey,” Kuroo says.  Pulling Tooru back to earth.

“Yeah?”

“I think you owe me something.”  Kuroo’s fidgeting, beneath the lights.  Hands at his side.  Hands behind his back.  Hands in his hair.

“Yeah?” Tooru asks.  “What?”

“A kiss?” Kuroo phrases it like a question, then says it again.  “A kiss.  For the guy who paid for dinner.”

“ _I_ paid for dinner.  You forgot to put cash in your wallet, and Bokuto’s credit card machine is still broken.”

“Shit, yeah.  I forgot about that.”  Kuroo sticks his hands in his pockets. Takes them back out.  Sticks them in again.  “Um.”

Tooru considers him – shirt half-unbuttoned, hair much less put-together than it was a few hours ago, cheeks just shy of pink – then grins.

“How about you come inside?” he asks.

Kuroo smiles in response – a slow thing, curling up like a piece of newspaper thrown onto a campfire, warm and full of potential.

* * *

They don’t actually kiss, that first night.

They go up to Tooru’s apartment, yes, and he fumbles with his keys for long enough that Kuroo starts laughing at him, and, yes, Kuroo sheds his jacket on the living room floor, and, yes, Tooru doesn’t bother to turn any lights on – but as they head towards the bedroom, Tooru says that he really did want to watch some TNG today, and Kuroo calls him a nerd, and Tooru insists that it’s great television and Kuroo would like it if he gave it a chance, and Kuroo says okay, fine, show me an episode if it’s that great, and he sprawls across much more than half of Tooru’s bed as Tooru grabs his laptop and opens up Netflix.

They fall asleep within the first half hour of “Q Who”, Kuroo leaning on Tooru’s shoulder, blankets kicked off at the end of the bed.

The next morning, Tooru wakes up to sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window and a weight on his right side.  It takes him a moment to realize that it’s Kuroo – face pressed into Tooru’s shoulder, arm thrown around his waist, and mouth curled into the tiniest smile.  He’s too tall, limbs too long, splayed out in all directions like a starfish trying to hold onto ten things at once.  But somehow – the warmth radiating off his skin, maybe, or the way he seems so comfortable, as though this bed was built to hold him – he seems almost ethereal, like a spirit passing just for the morning, gone when the sun goes down.

Tooru finds a spot of drool on the side of his pillow.  Less ethereal, then.  He grins, and nudges Kuroo’s arm.  “Morning.”

Kuroo blinks his eyes open slowly, lazily.  He catches sight of Tooru, then grins.  “Hey.”

“Did you, um.  Like the episode?” Tooru asks.  Probably not the most romantic thing to say, but – he’s curious.  So sue him.

“I honestly don’t remember any of it,” Kuroo admits.

“ _What_?” Tooru exclaims.  “It’s one of the best episodes!  We have to watch it again.  Right now.”

“Okay,” Kuroo agrees.

Tooru stares – that was too easy.  It had to be too easy.

“But we have to do something else first,” Kuroo goes on.  And he turns, props himself up on his elbows, and leans – leaning closer, always _closer_ , like a comet orbiting a star.

Tooru leans up to meet him.  The kiss is easy, natural – like bickering, like running, like grinning.  Kuroo’s mouth is warm and tastes faintly of cheap sake – but then, so does Tooru’s.  Tooru changes angles, opens his mouth, goes in to _taste_ – and somehow manages to get one hand in Kuroo’s hair, the other on his waist.

They break apart to breathe, smile stupidly at each other, then go back in for round two.

It’s after round four – or is it five?  Tooru’s lost track – that Kuroo stops and cocks one ear up.  “I think Kyo’s mad about something,” he tells Tooru.

Tooru’s confused for a second, but then he hears it: barking, getting increasingly louder, coming from the kitchen.

“Oh,” he says.  “Yeah, I might have forgotten to feed him last night.  It’s fine.”

Kuroo laughs, calls him a terrible dogsitter, and bends down to kiss his neck.

But it is, in fact, the opposite of fine, as Tooru finds out a few minutes later, when Kyo barks his way into the bedroom, decides that Tooru’s bedsheets are a good acceptable alternative to his dog food, and starts yanking, sending Kuroo tumbling off the bed and onto the floor.

He lies there for a moment, blinking confusedly up at Tooru like a mermaid suddenly launched onto dry land.

“I’m going to feed him right now,” Tooru says.  “And.  Um.  Maybe we should do this at your place, next time.”

And with that, a grin comes onto Kuroo’s face – a fire, roaring cheerfully to life.

“Next time,” he repeats.

“What, did you think there might not be a next time?” Tooru wants to know.

Kuroo shrugs – as well as he _can_ shrug, with his shoulders flat on the carpet.

Tooru climbs down and kisses him, just to make sure he knows that he's an idiot for ever thinking there might not be.

* * *

The most surprising thing is how little changes.

They still meet at the park every morning.  They still run together, argue together, get coffee together.  They still text each other about the most ridiculous things – Kuroo sending pictures of the weird things his students have written on their homework worksheets, or Tooru sending quotes he overhears on the subway.  They still meet for dinner, they still wander around Shibuya making fun of the newest fashions, they still bemoan each other’s hobbies.

But now, when Tooru meets Kuroo in the park in the mornings, he tilts his head up and pecks Kuroo on the cheek.  Now, when they argue and Tooru says something stupid, Kuroo will bend down and kiss him to shut him up.  Now, when they walk through crowded city streets, they make a contest of which one of them can grab the other one’s ass more times without people noticing.

Tooru makes Kuroo watch all of Star Trek with him.  He likes it, a lot more than Tooru expected – soon, half of what he talks about are theories about authorial intent, and parallels between characters, and all of this other stuff Tooru has learned to call _literary analysis._  They get through the Original Series in two weeks, watch all the movies in one night, then start on the Next Generation soon after.  Tooru even catches Kuroo wearing his ILLOGICOOL shirt once – it doesn’t quite fit him, the shirt leaving a couple of centimeters free above his waist, but it looks good.  (Everything looks good on Kuroo, something Tooru is careful not to tell him.)

And, for his part, Kuroo drags Tooru to all his favorite places in the city.  He’s of the opinion that it’s practically a national crime that Tooru has lived in Tokyo for nearly two years, yet has never been to the Great Earthquake Memorial, or the Skytree, or the Sea Life Park.  They spend one afternoon roaming around the Olympic Stadium, pretending to be tourists so that they don’t get in trouble for venturing into closed-off tournament areas, and Tooru goes starry-eyed at the thought of the Women’s National Volleyball Team winning gold in this very arena in 1984.  (When they go back to Kuroo’s apartment after, he tells Tooru that he’s going to win gold in the next Olympics, and Tooru kisses him so hard, they nearly dismantle the whole science section.)

Kuroo even starts showing up at his games – sitting in the back row, heckling him when he fucks up, telling him he could do better when he doesn’t.  “You’re fucking it up, Oikawa!” he shouts, and the coach tells Tooru that they can kick out any rude spectators if he wants, but Tooru just grins and says, “Nah, he’s with me.”  (And if he focuses better when he knows Kuroo’s watching, if he tries harder to pinpoint his tosses, works to ensure that every serve is near-impossible to receive, nobody needs to know.)

Tooru isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be like this, exactly.  He never had a girlfriend in high school or college – just girls who watched him at games, a few he took home after, boys he kissed at parties.  He never really had the time for it, never really felt like he was missing much.  But this – arguing and exploring and living, Kuroo reciting poetry on the train and Kuroo napping on his shoulder when he’s tired and Kuroo bending to kiss his collarbone as though he’s something worth keeping – this, he likes.  This, he thinks, he wants to hold onto.

* * *

Iwaizumi returns – second week of August, just as he’d promised – and brings back two new state of the art volleyballs and a host of apologies for Kyo.

“I wasn’t _that_ bad,” Tooru says, indignant, as Iwaizumi bends down to rub Kyo’s head and assure him that he is _never ever leaving him with that awful man ever again._

“Yeah, you were,” Kuroo calls from the couch.  They were in the middle of Pacific Rim when Iwaizumi got back – Kuroo has somehow never seen it, and Tooru is rectifying that gap in his education.

Iwaizumi straightens up.  “You must be Kuroo,” he says in the couch’s general direction.

Kuroo stands and makes his way over, running a hand through his hair.  “Yeah.  Iwaizumi, right?  Oikawa says you’re doing medical research in muscle strain.  Sounds like cool stuff.”

He extends one hand, but Iwaizumi doesn’t take it.  Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest, looks Kuroo up and down, and asks:

“What’s Oikawa’s biggest weakness?”

Kuroo answers without hesitation.  “He doesn’t know how to ask for help.”

Iwaizumi stands there, arms crossed over his chest, for another moment – then grins.  “I like you,” he declares, stepping over to Kuroo and slapping him across the back.

“What the fuck,” Tooru says.  Nobody pays attention to him.

* * *

At the tail end of the summer, as leaves are starting to change color and the Shibuya department stores are starting to advertise their fall lines, Kuroo says he wants to take Tooru someplace special.

“Someplace special,” Tooru repeats, incredulous.  “Haven’t we been to every shrine, memorial, and museum in Tokyo already?”

“Well, we haven’t, actually,” Kuroo replies.  He turns the corner from the street that Bokuto’s izakaya is located on (now their usual dinner spot) and starts walking in a different direction than they’d usually go to get back to the metro.  “But this is something else.”

And so, Tooru follows Kuroo down a different sidestreet, past a convenience store and a couple of cheap fast food places, to what looks like a European designer knock-off place.

“Look,” Kuroo says, pointing.

Tooru doesn’t get what he’s looking at, at first – there are shops like this all over Tokyo – but then, he catches sight of the person standing at the front counter, and he understands.

“Oh, my God.  Is that who I think it is?”

Kuroo starts to smirk.  “Who do you think it is?”

“Your rival, from high school,” Tooru says.  “The one – the one from that snake team.”

“Nohebi,” Kuroo supplies.  “Yeah.  That’s Daishou Suguru in the flesh.  Working a minimum-wage job at a shitty knock-off store.”

Tooru turns to look at him – and he’s grinning full-stop now, the kind of smile he usually saves for cool views from high buildings, or really solid kill blocks, or kissing Tooru.

“I don’t come here very often, but I like knowing that this exists,” he explains.  “You know?”

“Yeah,” Tooru says.  “Yeah, I know.  Little slimeball got what was coming to him, right?”

Kuroo nods, and reaches down to take Tooru’s hand.  “I have honestly never been more attracted to you than I am right now.”

Tooru considers that for a second, then asks, “Do you think he’d notice if we made out right here?  In front of his shitty little store?”

There’s a moment in there, between Kuroo’s eyes widening and Kuroo pulling him in, when Tooru thinks he might be about to get a confession. 

* * *

That fall, Tooru goes away on tour.

It isn’t the first time, or even the third.  Being captain of F.C. Tokyo’s second string team is a demanding job – he knew that when he signed on.  It calls for tournaments, and press junkets, and getting along tolerably well with a lot of not particularly tolerable people.  And usually, he can do it – he’s good at this, putting on a polite face, telling his team what they need to hear, leading people to victory.

But he misses – he misses easy banter and easy kisses, arguing through old scifi shows and critiquing new movies, sitting for hours at Bokuto’s izakaya and walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods that still feel like home.

It’s strange, Tooru thinks.  To not know that someone is important until you miss them.  To wonder what your life was like, before they walked into it.

And so, Tooru sends Kuroo photos of the weird advertisements he sees, and the gross shit he finds in hotel bathrooms, and the poems he likes from the book Kuroo lent him for the trip.  And he serves aces, and he leads his team, and he wonders if anyone is watching him from a TV set in Tokyo, next to a pile of books labeled _philosophy._

And he counts down the days until he gets back.

* * *

_15 October_

_10:49 P.M._

**asshole:** hey, you’re getting back soon right?

 **me:** yeah, next friday!!!

 **asshole:** when does your train come in?  and where?

 **me:** 6:30pm, shibuya station

 **asshole:** ok

 **asshole:** we should meet at hachiko

 **me:** hachiko?

 **me:** oh wait you mean that statue

 **me:** the dog one

 **asshole:** yeah

 **me:** wow kuroo i never thought you were a romantic

 **asshole:** what

 **asshole:** why?

 **me:** meeting at hachiko?  a statue of a dog?  in shibuya?  when the first time we met was because of a dog?  also in shibuya?

 **asshole:** i literally never thought about that

 **asshole:** i just thought it’s a good landmark

 **asshole:** now whos the romantic

 **me:** … shit

 **asshole:** love you too  <3

* * *

Here’s the thing: Tokyo is an enormous city.

It’s full of cars and trains and bicycles, full of buildings and shops and skyscrapers, full of monuments and ghosts and monsters.  But more than anything else, it’s full of people – mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and lovers and friends.  The old lady on the corner selling pork buns.  The woman in high heeled shoes hurrying to work.  The kids in light-up sneakers racing to see who can get to school first.  The boy with his headphones on, hoping to bump into somebody important.

And few places have more people than Shibuya Station, at rush hour on a Friday.  This place is a sea of people, an ocean of people, walking in waves that crest on at the doors only to be replaced by a new tide coming in.  Tooru swims in the current and searches – wonders if this is what the old explorers felt like, when they crossed the world in the hopes of new land.

And then, he gets outside, and – like some kind of miracle, the crowd clears.  He can see it: the statue, the city behind it, and the man, standing there in jeans and an old T-shirt.  Hands in his pockets, hair a ridiculous mess.  Leaning.  Always leaning.

There’s a man standing there, waiting.  Tooru thinks they’ve both been waiting a long time.

“Hey,” Kuroo says.

Tooru drops his bag and runs toward him.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor) / [tumblr](http://officialyachihitoka.tumblr.com/)
> 
> and [megan](https://twitter.com/hotdadtrinity) drew the picture at the end! she's so cool & talented.


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